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In the United States, a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) is a graduate degree, usually awarded in one of these areas: visual, plastic, literary, filmmaking, theater or performing arts typically requiring two to three years of study beyond the bachelor level. Coursework is primarily of an applied or performing nature with the program often culminating in a major work or performance.

MFA programs generally require a bachelor's degree prior to admission, but many do not require that the undergraduate major be the same as the MFA field of study. The most important admissions requirement is often a sample portfolio or a performance audition.

In the discipline of the visual and plastic arts specifically, the College Art Association has written guidelines[1] setting MFA standards.

The MFA differs from the MA in that the MFA, while an academic program, centers around practice in the particular field, while programs leading to the MA (which is normally insufficient for regular professorial appointments) are centered on the scholarly, academic, or critical study of the field. Many MA degree programs include 30-32 semester credits of coursework, while most MFA degree programs require 60-64 semester credits. In most colleges and universities, the MFA has replaced the creative MA thesis.

The MFA has traditionally been seen as a terminal degree, meaning it is a sufficient credential for permanent, tenured appointments to professorships at colleges and universities. The increasingly competitive market for tenure-track jobs and the proliferation of creative-arts doctoral programs is beginning to challenge this understanding of the degree, however.

At present there are few doctoral degree programs in these fields, but the DFA, or Doctor of Fine Arts, once awarded solely as an honorary degree, is increasingly being granted as an earned degree. Other universities are developing PhD programs in fields such as Creative Writing, Visual Arts, and Theater.^[1]

Because of the large number of MFA degree holders relative to available full-time teaching positions, new doctoral-level programs may provide a temporary employment advantage to their earliest graduates — and institutions offering such career positions might recruit on this basis. According to Robert Olen Butler, a Pulitzer Prize winner in fiction, the creative "Ph.D. is the new M.F.A., and the M.F.A. is the new M.A." (quoted in Delaney 88). "With only about 100 tenure-track faculty jobs in creative writing becoming available each year, and more than 2,000 graduate students emerging with new degrees in creative writing, the Ph.D. in creative writing may become more common" (Delaney 88).

Delaney, Edward J. "Where Great Writers Are Made: Assessing America's Top Graduate Writing Programs." The Atlantic Monthly. Special Fiction Issue. September 2007. pages 80-88.

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